Just had a fight with a frost dragon on my low level RP illusion thief..... I ended up having to use a fire atronach because the bugger wouldnt land so I could attempt a sneak dagger strike on it. It killed all the guards in winterhold. Do the guards respawn at some point?

Well it seems like there's a lot of adventurers out there. I find them dead all the time, but no doubt a good amount of them just retire after taking an arrow in the knee.